Researchers from QUT's Social Media Research Group (SMRG) are ramping up their analysis of social media activities surrounding the Queensland state election campaign this year, by drawing on cutting-edge ...

The week before the general election, UNM Political Science Associate Professor Mike Rocca presented a primer on campaign financing and a troubling change in the way political campaigns are being financed ...

Are the political parties really all that different from one another? Can politicians rig the vote in their favor by filling in their own profiles on the voting recommendation website "smartvote"? Two EPFL ...

Brazil's globally significant ecosystems could be exposed to mining and dams if proposals currently being debated by the Brazilian Congress go ahead, according to researchers publishing in the journal Science this w ...

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society congratulates the two winners of the HFES 2014 Voting Design Competition: corporate winter Intuitive Company and academic winner Georgia Tech Student Chapter. The winners, along with ...

Hackers attacked Ukraine's election commission website Saturday on the eve of parliamentary polls, officials said, but they denied Russian reports that the vote counting system itself had been put out of ...

American young adults are more racially and ethnically diverse, more likely to graduate from high school, and attend college, and less likely to smoke than previous generations, according to a report by the Federal Interagency ...

Election

An election is a decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold formal office. This is the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy fills offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and business organizations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations.

The universal use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient Athens. Elections were considered an oligarchic institution and most political offices were filled using sortition, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot.

Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, or improving the fairness or effectiveness of existing systems. Psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections (especially with a view to predicting future results).